In third grade we moved back to Pennsylvania and I returned to Penn View Christian School, where I had attended Kindergarten with Ms. Black. I stayed there for third and fourth grades, then, in my fifth year, we transferred to Plumstead Christian School. Plumstead was a bit of a hike, and my father had to drive us fifteen minutes just so we could catch the bus to school, which was another thirty or forty minutes away. A year later, we were back at Penn View, the commute proving just too long.
I would stay at Penn View until I graduated the eighth grade, at which time I went on to the public high school rather than attend Christopher Dock, the high school associated with Penn View.
Penn View Christian School was a Mennonite school. We lived in a large Mennonite community and while we were not Mennonite ourselves, it was a Christian school and that was good enough for my parents.
Mennonites, I was to learn, were followers of Menno Simons (you do have to wonder why they didn't call themselves Simonites). Menno was born in Switzerland in 1492, the same year Columbus discovered America. In 1536, he resigned his post as a Catholic priest and became an Anabaptist elder in Zurich. Though not an imposing figure, his writings were very influential in the Anabaptist community until his death in 1559. Around 1620, the Swiss Mennonites split into Upland Mennonites and Lowland Mennonites because of differences on excommunication, buttons and shaving. All, very important theological distinctions. The Upland Mennonites became our modern day Amish, and the Lowland Mennonites became the people I went to school with.
Even modern day Mennonites are divided into groups. They ranged on a scale from orthodox conservative to rather lackadaisical. One the one end, are black bumper Mennonites, so called because they paint the chrome on their cars black, so as not to appear flashy or worldly. Of course, they are already a step up from the Amish who refuse to own cars, use electricity or even zippers.
Next come your run of the mill, old-school Mennonites, who dress "plain" and whose women wear the traditional "bonnet" on their head. This was in response to a part of scripture that demanded that women's heads remain covered. Presumably this had started out with something closer to a burka, but had been whittled down to the current white lace doily that they bobby-pinned to their head like a bun.
Finally, you have your modern Mennonites who look like everyone else. They go along with the whole pacifist thing, so they aren't very good recruiting material for the armed services, but as far as I could tell, they didn't look or act any different from anyone else I knew.
The kids I went to school with came from families who were a combination of the above. They were sons of farmers and daughters of bankers. Some of the girls wore makeup and short skirts, and some of the girls wore traditional bonnets and long wool stockings. Some kids lived in brand new developments, some kids lived on 150 year old farms.
They were not necessarily all pacifists.
I wouldn't say I got in a lot of fights, but a lot more than you would think in a school of pacifists. I guess you could say that pacifism is not a natural state. It is a philosophy that must be learned. But as kids, not everyone had fully embraced the ideals of their elders.
I often wonder how commited those kids I went to school with are today about their pacifism. Especially in light of our current state of affairs in the Middle East. Of course it's easy to claim to be a pacifist when you live in a country with a volunteer army. Most people don't want to necessarily go to war. Most people aren't pro-war. But does that make you a pacifist? I guess no one knows for sure, but there are a few kids I'd like to meet up with again and ask.
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